Colicky Baby? Read This Before Calling an Exorcist
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
Stephanie Diani for The New York Times
Dr. Harvey Karp has devised a five-step method for quickly calming screaming babies.
egard the colicky baby at full throttle. Tiny arms and legs stiffen. Tummy goes hard. Face resembles a beet emitting paroxysmal shrieks. Unbelievably, the cry goes on for one, two, even three hours without pause. What's a parent to do?
Run a checklist. Is the baby hungry? Wet? Feeling gas pains? Allergic to something?
No, nothing is wrong. The baby appears healthy, even thriving. So typically nerve-shattered, exhausted parents call the pediatrician who, after examining the infant, gives a diagnosis: colic. Then, reflecting the deep mystery that still surrounds unsoothable crying, the physician offers medical advice, which these days falls into these three camps:
• Colic is perfectly normal; learn to live with it. It is temporary.
• Colic indicates something is wrong with your baby; keep looking for the cause and treat it, or get help for the family.
• Colic is inevitable; but you can try a new method that will stop crying by turning on a baby's internal "calming instinct."
Like deadlocked juries, medical experts who study colic agree on a central observation: all babies cry for short periods, but one in five has prolonged bouts of frantic screaming. Then they beg to differ. The controversy is being played out in medical journals, at conferences and, for the frazzled parents, in books written for the layman.
Not so long ago, the main explanation for colic was intestinal distress like gas or cramps, said Dr. Ronald G. Barr, a pediatrician and leading authority on colic at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. That is no longer true, he said. A very few infants have gastric reflux or allergies to cow's milk or formula, but a vast majority are perfectly healthy.
The babies are not in pain, Dr. Barr said. A colicky cry sounds the same as any other cry. About 60 percent of crying is due to fussiness, 30 percent is related to genuine upset and 10 percent is emblematic of true colic, which means that it is unsoothable.
Unsoothable crying is torture for parents, Dr. Barr said. It is completely unpredictable. "A giggly happy baby will launch into a full-blown cry and then stop on a dime," he said.
Studies of infants around the world show that unsoothable colic is a natural phase of early infant development, Dr. Barr said. Babies typically begin crying at 2 weeks of age. Colicky crying peaks at 6 weeks and ends by 3 to 4 months. It is not related to weak parental skills, being a, single parent, postpartum depression or anything done by adults. Infants in primitive tribes who are held 24 hours a day and breast-feed constantly show the same pattern in peak inconsolable crying.
"We now think of colic as being a part of normal development," said Dr. Ian St. James-Roberts, an expert in child development at the University of London Institute of Education. The infants are not stressed. But around 6 weeks of age, their brains undergo major changes that give rise to bouts of colic.
In their book "Early Infant Crying, a Parent's Guide" (Johnson & Johnson Pediatric Institute, 2001), Dr. St. James-Roberts and Dr. Barr advise parents to try to soothe their babies. But if the crying persists, they said, "it is O.K. to walk away."
Dr. Barry Lester, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Brown and a practitioner at the Colic Clinic of Women and Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, said he could not disagree more. "While it is true that babies eventually stop crying," Dr. Lester said, "I strongly object to those who say colic is not a problem."
In his new book, "Why Is My Baby Crying?: The Parent's Survival Guide for Coping With Crying Problems and Colic" (HarperCollins), Dr. Lester defines colic as crying "that interferes with child development or causes problems in the family."
The Colic Clinic sees 100 new families a year, usually with three or four sessions each, Dr. Lester said. "We find a fair number of babies that have reflux," he said. "We see physical signs of pain. Colic does produce a pain cry, and it reflects an immature nervous system." Parents are given advice on how to soothe their babies and to seek help from family counselors.
Amid such disagreements, another pediatrician, Dr. Harvey Karp, who has a private practice in Santa Monica, Calif., claims that he has devised a method for calming screaming babies - in minutes.
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
Stephanie Diani for The New York Times
Dr. Harvey Karp has devised a five-step method for quickly calming screaming babies.
egard the colicky baby at full throttle. Tiny arms and legs stiffen. Tummy goes hard. Face resembles a beet emitting paroxysmal shrieks. Unbelievably, the cry goes on for one, two, even three hours without pause. What's a parent to do?
Run a checklist. Is the baby hungry? Wet? Feeling gas pains? Allergic to something?
No, nothing is wrong. The baby appears healthy, even thriving. So typically nerve-shattered, exhausted parents call the pediatrician who, after examining the infant, gives a diagnosis: colic. Then, reflecting the deep mystery that still surrounds unsoothable crying, the physician offers medical advice, which these days falls into these three camps:
• Colic is perfectly normal; learn to live with it. It is temporary.
• Colic indicates something is wrong with your baby; keep looking for the cause and treat it, or get help for the family.
• Colic is inevitable; but you can try a new method that will stop crying by turning on a baby's internal "calming instinct."
Like deadlocked juries, medical experts who study colic agree on a central observation: all babies cry for short periods, but one in five has prolonged bouts of frantic screaming. Then they beg to differ. The controversy is being played out in medical journals, at conferences and, for the frazzled parents, in books written for the layman.
Not so long ago, the main explanation for colic was intestinal distress like gas or cramps, said Dr. Ronald G. Barr, a pediatrician and leading authority on colic at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. That is no longer true, he said. A very few infants have gastric reflux or allergies to cow's milk or formula, but a vast majority are perfectly healthy.
The babies are not in pain, Dr. Barr said. A colicky cry sounds the same as any other cry. About 60 percent of crying is due to fussiness, 30 percent is related to genuine upset and 10 percent is emblematic of true colic, which means that it is unsoothable.
Unsoothable crying is torture for parents, Dr. Barr said. It is completely unpredictable. "A giggly happy baby will launch into a full-blown cry and then stop on a dime," he said.
Studies of infants around the world show that unsoothable colic is a natural phase of early infant development, Dr. Barr said. Babies typically begin crying at 2 weeks of age. Colicky crying peaks at 6 weeks and ends by 3 to 4 months. It is not related to weak parental skills, being a, single parent, postpartum depression or anything done by adults. Infants in primitive tribes who are held 24 hours a day and breast-feed constantly show the same pattern in peak inconsolable crying.
"We now think of colic as being a part of normal development," said Dr. Ian St. James-Roberts, an expert in child development at the University of London Institute of Education. The infants are not stressed. But around 6 weeks of age, their brains undergo major changes that give rise to bouts of colic.
In their book "Early Infant Crying, a Parent's Guide" (Johnson & Johnson Pediatric Institute, 2001), Dr. St. James-Roberts and Dr. Barr advise parents to try to soothe their babies. But if the crying persists, they said, "it is O.K. to walk away."
Dr. Barry Lester, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Brown and a practitioner at the Colic Clinic of Women and Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, said he could not disagree more. "While it is true that babies eventually stop crying," Dr. Lester said, "I strongly object to those who say colic is not a problem."
In his new book, "Why Is My Baby Crying?: The Parent's Survival Guide for Coping With Crying Problems and Colic" (HarperCollins), Dr. Lester defines colic as crying "that interferes with child development or causes problems in the family."
The Colic Clinic sees 100 new families a year, usually with three or four sessions each, Dr. Lester said. "We find a fair number of babies that have reflux," he said. "We see physical signs of pain. Colic does produce a pain cry, and it reflects an immature nervous system." Parents are given advice on how to soothe their babies and to seek help from family counselors.
Amid such disagreements, another pediatrician, Dr. Harvey Karp, who has a private practice in Santa Monica, Calif., claims that he has devised a method for calming screaming babies - in minutes.
